Dale Jr. Crash

Yikes!

Says everyone made it off safely.
 
"Everyone made it off the aircraft safely."

Edit: missed it by >< much
 
4500ft according to the sectional.
 
And a (basically new) Citation Sovereign. Another article saying runway over-run.
 
And a (basically new) Citation Sovereign. Another article saying runway over-run.

*Latitude, and its 4 years old.

0A9 was not the best airport for taking a jet into. Looks like they landed on 24, which has a fair amount of terrain on the approach.
 
That's my home field. They recently lengthened the runway, supposedly it's 5,000 now. I heard they did it so more jets could operate out of it; supposedly a number of jets have a 5000 minimum in op lims? (at least that's what I heard the reason was).
Looks like the road on the west side of the field, which would mean attempted landing on 24 with overrun.
Most jets operating out of there seem to follow the night operations procedure that is only land on 6 and only takeoff on 24.
 
This airport is about an hour away from me, just across the mountains.
 
Anyone who really knows..please chime in..
To my untrained eye...Looks like the thrust reversers are not deployed...


NJR8.jpg
 
*Latitude, and its 4 years old.

0A9 was not the best airport for taking a jet into. Looks like they landed on 24, which has a fair amount of terrain on the approach.
With any sort of a straight-in approach, you'd be flying down the valley, no worries.
 
Brakes stop airplanes. Thrust reverse is not allowed to be used in landing distance calculations.

Depends on the situation. Dry runway, you're correct that they aren't used in the distance calculation.
 
Looks like the thrust reversers are not deployed...
Since having a reverser deploy in flight would be very bad, the design is very biased to keeping them closed. Once hydraulic pressure is lost, the revesers will shut quite quickly.
 
Not going to post the link but TMZ has some good video of the plane just after the crash with people exiting the plane.
 
I figure they were on a 3.6 degree glideslope, when they turned down the valley.

Here's how I got that. Tracking data on flightradar24, for N8JR is shown in the screenshot. The middle of the airport is at the bottom left, near the left-most symbol for highway 91 .

At the end of the green track shown, they were 7 miles from the runway. Their altitude was 3950, and ground speed 223 kts, at that point, just as they lined up with the highway in the valley. Field elevation is 1592, so they were 2360' above the field, at that point. Glideslope was arctan (2360/(7*5280) = 3.6 degrees.

No RNAV approach for that airfield, so no electronic glideslope.

upload_2019-8-15_20-22-46.png
 
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You don’t see many jets in flames with ppl getting out safely.
Wonder if they went in and out of there a lot?
 
No RNAV approach for that airfield, so no electronic glideslope.
This is incorrect. There is no RNAV approach to that runway in the direction they were traveling. There is to rwy 6 though.
Yes, there is terrain which requires a steeper descent on 24, or climb if on departure out of 6.
 
You don’t see many jets in flames with ppl getting out safely.
Wonder if they went in and out of there a lot?
Not sure about them but many race crews fly into 0A9 during Bristol. The FBO has a nice lounge with big screen in front of a wall of glass facing the runway. During the race, some of the race crews stay at the airport and watch the race in that lounge.
 
Wonder what the vref speed was with an almost 5k density altitude? Saw the TMZ video this morning and thought the same thing about the douche not trying to help.
 
A sickening video of some dumbass sitting in his car getting video instead of trying to help. Even says, “I wonder if there’s anyone else in there?”
There were times in my life when back problems were such that I could walk and get around, but only just. If jet was in flames in front of me, the only thing I'd have been able to do would be to take out my phone, call 911 and the switch to video and record the event. If I'd tried to help people off the plane at that point in my life, they'd be forced to help me.

Nice to know that if I'd actually found myself in that situation back then, lots of good people on the internet would look at the resulting video just automatically assume I was a dumbass for not trying to be a hero.
 
Vref is an indicated airspeed. It does not change with altitude.
Correct. But for a given Vref, landing at a higher altitude may give you a higher ground speed, and thus more energy to expend.
 
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